monds,
so he brought his prize to a merchant at the latter place. The merchant
was amazed to see in the peasant's pebble a very large diamond. The
fame of Coulour quickly spread, and it soon became a great mining
center, employing thouÂsands of workmen. Tavernier objects that the
mine yielded stones of impure water. The gems, he declares, seemed to
partake of the nature of the soil and tended to a greenish, a reddish,
or a yelÂlowish hue as the case might be.
This
defect was not apparent in the Great Mogul which was, he distinctly
says, perfect, of good water and of good form, having but one little
flaw on the lowest edge. Taking this flaw into consideration, the value
of the diamond, according to Tavernier's scale of estimation, was
11,723,278 livres which being reduced to
